Joseph Belbruno Blog

  IBM’s profit warning shows tech valuations are all in the timing Financial Times Europe16 Jul 2026 IBM’s worst day in 20 years was a pretty reas on able one for the mar ket. The ITgiant’s stock fell 25 per cent on Tues day, but the S&P 500 closed slightly up.Whatever ails Big Blue doesn’t seem to be rip pling across the fin an cial world.Which is strange, because IBM’s profit warn ing has implic a tions for other com pan -ies too. Chief exec ut ive Arvind Krishna warned that demand for IBM’s main frame productswould shrink faster than pre vi ously expec ted because of a “capex repri or it isa tion”.In plain Eng lish, cus tom ers are delay ing pur chases of big-box com puters andrelated ser vices so they can bring for ward pur chases of serv ers, stor age andmemory, where prices are rising. In plainer Eng lish: IT budgets may be ample, butthey are finite. If one takes IBM at its word, the longterm pro gnosis for its products has notchanged. But the fact that investors sliced a qua...

  Rating reforms are needed for private credit Financial Times Europe16 Jul 2026Haran Segram Haran Segram is an adjunct pro fessor of fin ance at New York Uni versity Stern School of Busi ness Less than 20 years after the fin an cial crisis, credit rat ing agen cies are once again atthe centre of con cerns about a sys temic risk in fin ance — this time about how theyare now grad ing the private credit mar ket. UBS chair Colm Kelle her warned late last year the insur ance industry was enga gingin “rat ings arbit rage” in private credit. That fol lowed a let ter by US sen ator Eliza -beth War ren sent to the big agen cies ask ing whether recent rat ings had beeninflated. The global Fin an cial Sta bil ity Board also warned in May that private creditremained untested in a pro longed eco nomic down turn. The issues raised closely resemble those that sur faced in the after math of the 2008fin an cial crisis. Who pays the rat ing agency? How is the con flict of interest man -aged? Why do priva...

  Is Vladimir Putin Finally Feeling Pressure? The Russian President is facing growing domestic discontent after a series of successful attacks by the Ukrainian Army, including a major attack on Moscow. Photograph by Anastasia Barashkova / POOL / AFP / Getty The war in Ukraine, which not long ago seemed to be turning in favor of Vladimir Putin’s invading Russian Army, appears to have undergone another reversal. Thanks in part to its drone campaign, the Ukrainians have, according to some analysts, “ turned the tide ,” putting pressure on Putin to potentially accept a ceasefire in the coming months. At the same time, there have been bubbles of discontent forming within Russia, over the cost of the war and government crackdowns on internet access. (On Thursday, Ukraine launched what may be its largest drone attack ever on Moscow, causing chaos throughout the city.) To understand what might be happening in Russia, and how the Putin regime might respond, I recently e-mailed several roun...

  Comment Putin is cornered – here’s why that’s bad news for Ukraine – and us For the first time in years of war, the Russian regime looks as if it is on the verge of an internal split as the Kremlin’s political managers struggle to reconcile the voracious military need for money with maintaining social and economic stability. But there is extreme danger when an opponent is backed into a corner, writes Owen Matthews Owen Matthews 10 hours ago - Thursday 16 July 2026 06:00 Listen One morning early last week, Moscow motorist Igor Karpov rose before dawn to join a queue to buy petrol. Twenty litres per car was the maximum allowed after weeks of Ukrainian drone strikes knocked out or damaged almost all the refineries in European Russia. In all, Karpov, a retired engineer and businessman, spent six hours filling the tank of his Mitsubishi SUV, plus a couple of canisters for emergencies. “I’ve been seeing a great energy superpower in action,” says the 61-year-old Karpov sarcastically. ...

Hong Kong Police Raid Independent Bookstores and Arrest 5 People Other booksellers have been detained in recent months as part of a broad national security crackdown. Listen · 4:10 min Police officers loading confiscated items from Have A Nice Stay, an independent bookstore in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Credit... Tommy Wang/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images July 16, 2026, 1:54 a.m. ET Hong Kong’s national security police on Wednesday raided two bookstores, seized boxes of books and arrested five people on suspicion of sedition. The police accused two men and three women of displaying items “with seditious intention” and selling publications with “seditious content” that included “inciting hatred” against the Hong Kong government, its judiciary and the police, according to a government statement . It was the third time in recent months that the police have arrested proprietors of independent bookstores, as part of a broader crackdown in the city that has increasingly focused on literatur...